Introduction to Every Leader
Being There: Encountering America's Presidents
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
16th President of the United States, 1861-April 1865
Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
AMERICAN PRESIDENTS

Lincoln Memorial
Washington, DC
 

Staue of Lincoln in the memorial chamber

Statue of Abraham Lincoln
in the memorial chamber
Photographed by Carol A. Highsmith
for the National Park Service


                      
In This Temple
As In the Hearts of The People
For Whom He saved the Union
The Memory of Abraham Lincoln
Is Enshrined Forever

         Inscription in Statuary Chamber, Lincoln Memorial

 





The Lincoln Memorial National Memorial honors the 16th and perhaps greatest president of the United States, and symbolizes his belief in the freedom and dignity of all people.  Lincoln saved the Union, but in doing so, he also preserved America’s high ideals.  The Lincoln Memorial stands on the National Mall in a position of honor, at the west end of a line extending from the United States Capitol and the Washington Monument.  The memorial is one of the country’s beloved shrines.  In the 20th century, it became a powerful symbol of the continuing struggle to extend one of the nation’s founding principles:  “All men are created equal.”

For the men and women of the North, Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 almost immediately transformed this outstanding, if embattled, wartime leader into a sainted martyr.  By 1867, two groups were making plans to commemorate his memory in the nation’s capital.  One, led by a black woman born in bondage, began to collect money to honor the author of the Emancipation Proclamation.  Contributions from freed slaves, primarily Union army veterans, erected a statue of Lincoln striking the chains from a kneeling slave in 1876.  It took much longer to build the Lincoln Memorial.

Congress passed the first of many bills to create a memorial to Lincoln in 1867, but nothing happened until 1911, when Congress created a new Lincoln Memorial Commission.  Plans proceeded rapidly, though not without controversy.  Although the Senate Park Commission (usually called the McMillan Commission) recommended the present site as the location for a major memorial, many people opposed the proposed location.  Work on reclaiming the west end of the National Mall from the Potomac River was still going on, and the area was still, as the critics suggested, “a swamp.”

Lincoln Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
the National Park Service

The Lincoln Memorial Commission selected architect Henry Bacon to design the memorial and Daniel Chester French to create the statue of Lincoln.  The groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1914.  Lincoln Memorial Commission president William Howard Taft presented the completed memorial to the nation on Memorial Day, 1922.  Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s only surviving son, was present at the dedication.  The principal speaker that day was Dr. Robert Moton, president of the Tuskegee Institute, but he addressed a largely segregated audience.

Constructed of granite, marble, and limestone, the memorial is an outstanding example of Neoclassical design, based on the Parthenon, in Athens, Greece. It consists of a main level on a high raised basement with a recessed attic story above.  The building stands in splendid isolation in a landscaped circle at the west end of the National Mall.  A colonnade of 36 Doric columns, representing the number of States in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death, surrounds the memorial chamber.  Many symbols representing death and military triumph decorate the exterior, but the primary impression is of dignified, imposing simplicity.  The columns and all other exterior elements tilt slightly inward, to keep the enormous building from looking top-heavy.

Visitors climb a long monumental staircase to reach the imposing main entrance.  Rows of Ionic columns divide the interior into three sections. Daniel Chester French’s Lincoln dominates the central memorial chamber.  The seated figure, apparently lost in thought, faces the Washington Monument across the length of the Reflecting Pool.  A recessed lighting system ensures that the expressive features are visible in all light conditions.  French originally planned a 10-foot tall statue, but soon realized that it would be much too small for the enormous space.  He finally decided on the present size, 19 feet, but feared that it might be too large.  He need not have worried.

Staue of Lincoln in the memorial chamber
Statue of Abraham Lincoln
in the memorial chamber
Photographed by Carol A. Highsmith
for the National Park Service

Lincoln's powerful rhetoric defined the issues of the war for the nation and the world; his words continue to provide inspiration for posterity.  The chambers on either side of the central chamber enshrine two of his great speeches.  The north chamber contains an inscription of his Second Inaugural Address; the Gettysburg Address adorns the wall of the south chamber. Murals above the inscriptions represent Lincoln’s guiding principles.

Within a short time of its dedication, millions of people were visiting the Lincoln Memorial every year, some out of curiosity, some looking for peace and strength.  On Easter Sunday 1939, the great mezzo-soprano, Marian Anderson, sang here for a throng of 75,000 people, after being refused the use of a nearby auditorium because of her race.  On a beautiful day in August 1963, 200,000 participants in the March on Washington, heard the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the memorial.  For millions of people, Americans and others, this memorial is an enduring symbol of freedom.


Plan your visit

The Lincoln Memorial National Memorial, a unit of the National Park System, stands in the center of Lincoln Memorial Circle, where 23rd St. NW meets Constitution and Independence Avenues in West Potomac Park in Washington, DC.  Click here for the National Register of Historic Places file: text and photos.  The Lincoln Memorial is open to the public 24 hours a day. Rangers are on duty to answer questions from 9:30am to 11:30pm daily.  For more information visit the National Park Service Lincoln Memorial National Memorial or call 202-426-6841.  Free interpretive Ranger talks are available via your telephone. Call 202-747-3420 to hear new thematic programs, including “The Gettysburg Address,” “Debunking the Myths of the Lincoln Memorial,” and the “Life and Times of Lincoln the Man".

The Lincoln Memorial has been documented by the National Park Service’s Historic American Buildings Survey.  The Lincoln Memorial is featured in the National Park Service Washington, DC Travel Itinerary.

 
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